Kevin D. Roberts, PhD
Three months ago, the impeached Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised reporters that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was “tremendously prepared for hurricane season.” Now, he’s changing his tune. On October 2, he claimed that FEMA does not “have the funds” to make it through hurricane season, which means that people suffering from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene must fend for themselves, not to mention the destruction Hurricane Milton is now bringing to the people of Florida. In response to this crisis, Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Sunday $157 million in additional aid for displaced people, not in our own country, but in the nation of Lebanon. Meanwhile the people of Lebanon, Tennessee are volunteering and sending aid to their fellow citizens across the state.
FEMA’s incompetent management is an age-old problem. In 1992, when Hurricane Andrew swept through Southern Florida and into the bayous near Lafayette, Louisiana, where I grew up, it left a long trail of death and destruction. My community couldn’t wait for FEMA to get its act together, so, as an 18-year-old Eagle Scout, I helped clear the wreckage. I know many young people across the Southeast are doing the same today.
But what makes this Biden-Harris botched response unique—and particularly outrageous—is that the same administration claiming it doesn’t have enough money to support suffering Americans appropriated $1.6 billion dollars in FEMA funds to assist illegal aliens since October 2021.
The die was cast in the Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bill, when Congress added $150 million for FEMA to provide “shelter and other services to families and individuals encountered by” DHS.
This error was then compounded in appropriations for FY 2023 and 2024 when Congress ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hand over $800 million and $650 million, respectively, to FEMA’s newly branded “Shelter and Services Program.”
Biden and Border Czar Harris didn’t prioritize these funds for Americans suffering from natural disasters. » Read More
https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/it-time-stop-allocating-fema-funding-illegal-immigrants